Giant Pool of Money

Giant Pool of Money

The Giant Pool of Money series examines the thoughts and beliefs that led to the global financial crisis in 2008 and the profound loss of faith in markets that followed.

The centerpiece of the series is a 15-foot-tall pyramid of champagne glasses, connected to a change machine that breaks dollar bills into “quarters.” The coins were actually replicas minted out of the element gallium, a metal that melts just above room temperature. Transported by a network of conveyor belts to the top of the pyramid and deposited into the uppermost champagne glass, the coins melt and cascade down the pyramid over time.  It’s equal parts literal trickle-down theory and Terminator 2’s liquid metal monster.

Viewers  feed paper money into the machine themselves in order to confront how events in their own lives relate to the mind-bogglingly complex, media-constructed image of our economy.  What seems like solid, familiar, everyday currency melts before our eyes, threatening to collapse the entire, fragile system — a visual rendering of our loss of faith in our globally interconnected economy.

Exhibitions: FAKE, Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland. 404 International Festival of Art and Technology 15, Fukuoka City Science Museum, Fukuoka, Japan.

Funded in part by The University of Michigan Office of Research Funds for Research and Scholarship grant.

Giant Pool of Money, 2016. Exhibition view at FAKE: THE REAL DEAL?. Photo credits: Science Gallery Dublin